That's why I am offering my guaranteed method for improving your hub score. No longer will you be laughed at for a puny score of 23. We will boost your score up to 75 and beyond! Within days, you will receive your package containing all the tools ...

*ahem, Yoshi, we aren't mailing out tool kits*

Oh, right! Within this hub you will find a link that you can follow that will lead you to ...

*Uh ... Yoshi. No links. We will present the info right here in this hub*

Very well then, for a small fee of ...

*There won't be a fee involved. You'll hand out the info for free.*

Ah rubbish! I hate that angelic presence that hovers over me, but I suppose it's right. Truth be told, I never paid for what I learned and neither should you. My score constantly hovers in the 90s and has done so since my first month here, so it's only a matter of retracing what I have done to help you achieve the same success.

We all started here with nothing. Depressing? Isn't it? We could be the greatest hubber of all time, but no one knows it?

Look at them, laughing at you with score of 80 or above! Shake your angry fist at them, for you too shall achieve such a score, and you will do it in such a way that you will earn their respect and praise. They will rue the day they laughed at you ... or perhaps that's paranoia setting in. After all, they were all newbs at one time to, and perhaps they laugh to suppress the sadness they feel for the zero they all once were. 

Regardless, we're going to catch up with them, and we're going to catch up quick. Are you with me? Good!

On day one, don't worry about making money! That's right, a heard me. Don't consider it. Why? Well, no offense, but you are just a newb and no one finds you all that interesting just yet. Now ... now ... don't run of and sulk, it happens to us all. We just need to make over your image a bit and to do that we will need to decide where to start. As such, your first assignent is to get our a piece of paper and write down ten things you know something about.

You might know things about rock climbing, about cars, about fishing, about computers. Write those topics down, as that's what we'll write about first. 

Again, don;t worry about money topics ... at least not yet ... as they will do you little good until you become established. Why? Well, I didn't really want to get into that yet, but I suppose I could digress briefly.

As a hubber starting out you're a zero. That means Hubpages isn't sure yet if you're a spammer, a pariah, or a character of great interest. After all, to enter a room and announce yourself isn't enough to say who you actually are - you need to offer proof. As such, your hubs are hit with a 'don't follow ' penalty until your hub score increases, so we need to help you get bumped up where your work will be taken seriously - and then we will wory about making money.

So, going back to our topics ... Evaluate each one and decide if you can write at least a thousand meaningful words on each one. Those you can't, you replace with something else, and when you are done you have the topics for your first ten hubs.

So, what's next?

Do some googling and check your facts. After all, we want the information you present to the world to be based on fact - not opinion. Also, this googling session will no doubt present more ideas for each hub, enriching those first ten you will produce. 

another reason for research is to read what others have written and familiarize yourself with how to write a good article. We aren't looking for text to copy here ... in fact ... I recommend you do not print out, write down, or copy a single thing you read. Memorize what's important to you as you will need to write it all down in your own words.

We all start with a first hub ... no one can skip this step, as you have to write a first hub before you can write a second, a third, and so on. As such, we need to become familiar with the hub creation tool before continuing on. I provide a great into to the hub tool that you will find here:

I'll wait while you run off and read that, or you could also wait until later. The choice is yours.

That nod didn't look convincing, but I'll take you at your word.

To start, we will take a very basic approach to hub design that you can modify as you go on. You will want to print this template out for later use.

Here are the hubtools we will use for our basic hub:

Four text capsules, one photo capsule, one video capsule (optional), one news capsule (optional), two link capsules (optional), one poll capsule, and one comments capsule

You might need more, but I recommend no less. Gather these together and we will continue one.

First, open a wordprocessing program, pick one of your topics, and write at least 1000 words about it. If you can't then you probably picked a poor topic - move onto the next one.

With your article written, divide it up into smaller logical blocks and place a title over each block. I recommend no less than 4, though there's no reason you can't divide it up further than that, just don't create a separate block for each paragraph ... the goal is for each block to have meaning if set alone by itself.

Next, go into the hubtool and enter your text blocks - one block per text capsule. Enter the title in the subtitle part and enter the text in the text part ... easy, right? And if you need more text capsules, feel free to create them. Their free, after all, so use what you need.

As I noted above, I really think a photo is important for each hub, though I don't always follow this rule myself. For the most part I do, and you should too.

So, follow this link to dig up a photo that's somehow related to your hub. I'll wait here:

I use the site mentioned above because the photos are free, which prevents us from getting into legal issue later. Trust me, you don;t want the feds at your door because you pulled someone's picture from their site and failed to pay them.

All you need to do is search for a picture, right click on it, click 'save to desktop', and then open your photo capsule, choose my computer, click 'choose file', click 'load the images', and then click 'save'. It's just that easy!

And there you have your first photo.

So, where should you put it? Wherever it logically fits in, though I recommend that it be after your first text capsule, as you will want the space to the right of your first text capsule open for Google ads, which you will worry about later. Again, we are worried about making you a quality hubber first and a money making one second, as you must become one before you can consider becoming the other.

Can you add more pictures, I heard someone ask ... Absolutely, though I recommend not putting in too many photos, as it can detract away from your writing ... I would go with a 1 to 3 ratio ... one picture for every three text capsules.

You can also include a video, a news feed, and two links. The first two are according to flavor, but the last one I highly recommend.

Link capsules are great for leading a reader from your hub to something else. And what should that something else be? Why, another one of your hubs. However, I only recommend two links per hub while you're starting out, lest you be considered a 'link liege', which is never a good thing. 

So, when should you link to your other hubs and when shouldn't you? The true litmus test is simple ... is there any relationship between the two hubs? If you can show a reader how one hub relates to another then it's a good hub to link to. Otherwise, don't do the link.

For instance, you could link a hub on cars to one on tools, if you explained that the hub covered tools you would need to fix cars. However, if you wanted to link a hub on cars to one on flower gardens, that would be a bit of a stretch and probably should not be attempted. That's why links are optional, as you will find some instances where a hub is an orphan that doesn't fit in well with your other hubs. That's okay, as you might write hubs that are related to it over time, and can install the links then. After all, a hub is never truly finished ... you can always go back and do more. 

Polls are invaluable and should always be your next to the last item. And what should the poll ask? 'Did you enjoy this article?' or 'Did you find this article useful?'

Why?

Because ...

Sorry, I was feeling a bit dodgy there, I'll ease up on the caffeine a bit.

The reason is you want feedback and a poll like this will help you see if you are reaching your audience. The answers should be simple ... 'yes', 'some of it', and 'no'.

By checking these polls from time to time you can get an idea if an article is achieving its goal. Then looking at the feedback, don't be alarmed at the lack of response ... just look for the 'no' votes, as those represent readers you didn't reach. Get a lot of those, and you might want to reconsider writing your article.

Which brings us to comments ... The very final capsule should always be a comments capsule, as these extend your article's worth tenfold. When someone writes in here 'I really enjoyed this article' others will consider you as a possible viable source for info on this topic, and will look for similar hubs from you in the future - which creates traffic - wahoo!

But what if they refute what you have said in your article? Booyah! That's great! Go back to Google and see if they were right, If they were confused by something you said, then go back and make it more clear in your article. If you were wrong about something, go back and fix it. This is the feedback you want to make your hub shine!

Also, you will want to go into your keywords on the right and add keywords and phrases 'specifically' related to the article you just wrote. The more specific you are, the better quality of traffic you will eventually pull in.

Write more! We want at least 10 to start out. If it takes days, weeks, months even, you need to write a certain amount of hubs to get noticed. Keep writing until you have ten complete, as this will put you out there as an earnest hubber seeking to be noticed and the constant work will keep you out of the shadow that so many hubbers fall into ... the forums.

Now, I do like the forums and see nothing evil in them, but they do appear to be a black hole that many newb hubbers fall into and never escape. You see, when you are in the forums babbling away you are not getting any hubs written, which does nothing to help your score. Believe me, there will come a time for self promotion, but this waking hour isn't it. Besides, the elder hubbers rarely take someone serious in the forum who doesn't have a few hubs already under their belt. 

As such, write your ten hubs and get them out of the way. You will feel much better when you are done.

Great! Now we are ready for social integration. Go jibba jabba on the forums a bit (you know you've been waiting to) then you need to click on answers up above and click quesitons.

Here, you will find the mecca of score building. You see, these are fellow hubbers asking questions and looking for answers. Now ... 90% of them are questions you can't answer or shouldn't waste any time on doing so, but this leaves many questions that are good to approach.

If you know an answer to one of them, then respond, even if someone else already did - just make sure your answer includes something the others might have missed. And if you find yourself with a lot to say on the topic? Save your answer then go back into the question (which will say you have already answered the question) and click the link that allows you to create a hub to answer the question.

Now, you may ask, why wouldn't you just do this to begin with? Well, your shorter answer shows you to know something about the topic, so then the reader is more inlined to look at your hub ... and guess what ... by creating your hub this way you get a free link to it ... a bonus! Just don't create questions and answer them yourself, as it makes you look a bit silly and just might be against the rules.

Patience, my young padawah. Within days you should see your score beginning to rise. It should keep creeping up until it plateaus for a few days. Until then, you can answer questions and hobnob in the forums. 

And what if you plateau below your goal? Well, then you need to write more articles, but by this point you should already see your number rising up to a good number. If not, look at the scores on your hubs themselves. If any of them are below a 60 after a week then you might need to spruce them up a bit to make them better. After all, the quality of your content does directly affect your score.

As for any hubs that remain under a score of 40 for over a week, delete them and rewrite them fresh from scratch, as they are typically beyond saving and will only hurt your score in the end. it will take several days for them to disappear, so you will have to wait before writing them again.

I scored as high as a 99 in my first two months, though I never hit that elusive 100. As for my typical score ... it's in the 90s, doing no more than I just told you to do. For you see, I wouldn't expect you to follow a system I knew wouldn't work, and I wouldn't know it worked, had I not already used it myself.

So, how high will your score go? Time will tell. Now, go out there and win one for the Yoshi! :)